LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.26 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 26 January 2009 - Volume 03
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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.19 (07) [E]

from Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

Luc wrote

PS: Steven Pinker believes the brain is "programmed" to pick up spoken
language easily, but not "programmed" to learn how to read and write. A
human being, he believes, will generally not spontaneously learn to do so (~
his book: The Blank Slate).

Trust Pinker to say the bl.......ing obvious and make it sound like sound
research.

Remember how we all laughed at Tarzan teaching himself to read by means of
his building blocks and baby books!!! Edgar Burroughs ( is that the right
author??) actively believed along with many 19th century people that an
intelligent baby would de natura speak its own mother tongue in the absence
of any mother or father or anyone else to help it.

I wonder how. Did they imagine language sitting dormant in a brain waiting
for experience to awaken it? Did it like MInerva spring fully fledged (so to
speak) at a given point?

Of course we cannot  be programmed de natura for reading and writing because
both are creations of man and still not universal experiences. Of course we
must be adapting / adopting some other part of the brain in order to master
these learned skills.

It is interesting that the FOXP2 gene which appears to have a direct link to
sentence sequencing has as its main (orignal) role the control of fine
muscles around the mouth and also the fingers. By building a sequence of
actions with one's fingers to complete a task, perhaps we might see the
beginnings of the order of ideas as we place them in a sentence.

I wonder why som many / so much of Pinker's books grate on my nerves?

Heather

•

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